We can’t let the week of Iranian unrest go without a mention of the clumsy way Barack Obama tried to take credit for the push for freedom by the people of Iran, who have spent 30 years gradually working to the point of going to the streets to demand their rights.  In a Rose Garden press conference, Obama not only took credit for a little Iranian Hope & Change, but also the Lebanese version, and characterized the Iranian election in a rather odd way:

Obama said he was “excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran.”

Pointing to the recent election of moderates in Lebanon’s parliamentary balloting, an optimistic Obama thinks there is room for change in Iran.

“And obviously, after the speech that I made in Cairo, we tried to send a clear message that we think there is the possibility of change. And ultimately, the election is for the Iranians to decide, but just as has been true in Lebanon, what can be true in Iran as well is that you’re seeing people looking at new possibilities,” Obama said.

“And whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there’s been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways,” he added.

Lebanon freed itself from Syrian political and military domination long before Barack Obama started talking about change, and his Cairo speech had nothing to do with it.  The Lebanese elections actually represented a “robust debate,” being free and fair.  The Iranian elections were anything but; it consisted only of candidates approved by the ruling mullahs and had almost the same amount of diversity as a standard Soviet election.  The real “debate,” if one wants to call it that, took place after the mullahs botched their election-rigging.

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